In order for Police or other units such as firefighters to gain access to houses or apartments, it is necessary to be able to rapidly open the access doors. Such rapid opening of housing or apartment doors may be essential for emergency rescue actions.
Presently, under such circumstances, doors are opened by so-called door rams. Such a door ram comprises a heavy metallic ram member with handles attached thereto. For breaking a door open one or several persons hold the ram and slam it forcefully against the door. Depending on the design and the quality or strength of the door, this slamming procedure must be repeated several times before the door is opened.
The breaking open of doors in this conventional way for example during a police raid can be very dangerous because of the time required therefore. A criminal warned by a first unsuccessful ram blow may shoot from behind the door through the door, and injure or even kill a policeman trying to open the door. In addition, the handling of such a heavy mechanical ram for breaking open heavy solid doors also presents a danger for injury to the persons handling the ram.
In particular in connection with a police raid it is extremely important that a door is reliably opened with the first blow. Also in connection with emergency rescue operations such an apparatus is very advantageous as it avoids the loss of time in opening a door.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide an apparatus by which even strong and heavy doors can be reliably opened with a single blow and which can be accomplished by a single person.1 